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    Their Backs to the Sea: Poems and Photographs
    Their Backs to the Sea: Poems and Photographs
    Their Backs to the Sea: Poems and Photographs
    Ebook144 pages37 minutes

    Their Backs to the Sea: Poems and Photographs

    By Margaret Randall

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    About this ebook

    Detailing the natural and human history of Rapa Nuimore commonly known as Easter Islandthis extraordinary collection of poems and photographs links together the ancient inhabitants of the most isolated, inhabited spot on earth with common concerns and hopes of the present. Illustrating the unique culture and ongoing struggle to survive against dramatic odds, this volume dramatically depicts the basic desires, misgivings, and challenges that human beings have long faced, regardless of time and place.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWings Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2009
    ISBN9781609400729
    Their Backs to the Sea: Poems and Photographs
    Author

    Margaret Randall

    Writer and social activist Margaret Randall is the author of more than eighty published books, including To Change the World: My Years in Cuba (2009) and, most recently, As If the Empty Chair / Como si la silla vaca (a bilingual book of poetry) and First Laugh (essays). She lives in Albuquerque.

    Read more from Margaret Randall

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      Book preview

      Their Backs to the Sea - Margaret Randall

      Their Backs

      to the Sea

      Ahu Tongariki, as seen from the sea.

      Their Backs to the Sea © 2009 by Margaret Randall

      Cover art: Tongariki Trough Rano Raraku © 2009 by Jane Norling

      Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-916727-61-1

      ePub ISBN: 978-1-60940-072-9

      Kindle ISBN: 978-1-60940-073-6

      Library PDF ISBN: 978-1-60940-074-3

      Wings Press

      627 E. Guenther

      San Antonio, Texas 78210

      Phone/fax: (210) 271-7805

      On-line catalogue and ordering:

      www.wingspress.com

      All Wings Press titles are distributed to the trade by Independent Publishers Group

      www.ipgbook.com

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

      Randall, Margaret, 1936-

        Their backs to the sea : poems and photographs / by Margaret Randall. -- 1st ed.

          p. cm.

        ISBN 978-0-916727-61-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) I. Title.

        PS3535.A56277T47 2009

        811’.52--dc22

      2009020702

      Except for fair use in reviews and/or scholarly considerations, no portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author or the publisher.

      For Barbara and Jane, co-adventurers

      Photographs are indicated by italics.

      All photographs were taken by Margaret Randall.

      Contents

      Ahu Tongariki, as seen from the sea

      Easter Island, Rapa Nui, or simply the land

      Land and Seascape

      Hare Paenga Foundation

      Lone Pukau

      Island Without a Name

      I

      II

      III

      IV

      Ahu Tongariki, closeup of two Moai

      Palm leaf

      Banana leaf

      V

      VI

      VII

      VIII

      IX

      X

      Fallen Moai at Ahu Akahanga

      Moai fallen face down

      XI

      XII

      XIII

      Birdman house at Orongo

      Bermed roofs of Birdman houses at Orongo

      XIV

      XV

      XVI

      Moai inside Rano Raraku crater

      Moai on outer flank of Rano Raraku

      Pulling the Island Behind

      Falling Moai on outer flank of Rano Raraku

      Left Handed

      Pulling the Island Behind

      Migration

      Ahu Tehai

      Makemake petroglyphs at Orongo

      Ahu Akapu

      Inhabitants

      Accidental. Misplaced.

      Matriarch Now

      Remembered Lives

      How to Believe

      Storyline

      Feet Still Run

      Surprising Burma

      Calamity or Stagecraft

      Corn

      You Get to Choose Now

      Whole Silence

      Always There Is a Place

      The Art of Our Love

      The A Word

      Singular Shadow Rock

      Disappearing Beauty

      A Word Breaks

      Relativity

      In Quick Succession

      Between the Old Year and New

      Moon Colony

      More Sugar?

      Seven Words

      Imagine a Body

      Midday Recognition

      Connective Tissue

      Call and Response

      Necklace of Days

      What I Tell the Young When They Ask

      Ahu Tongariki seen from the lip of Rano Raraku crater

      Ahu Tongariki

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      About the Cover Artist

      Critical Praise for Their Backs to the Sea

      Easter Island, Rapa Nui, or simply the land

      your ancestors felt no need to name,

      place that receives me now

      eager and awkward: my eyes

      hauling picture-book images,

      mouth filled with questions

      juggling answers as I breathe.

      I will think of you as an island

      without color on a map,

      your first people dizzied in harmony,

      clothed by the land itself:

      no reason to signify

      that which receives and gives,

      asks nothing in return.

      Hare Paenga Foundation Overleaf: Land and seascape

      Island Without a Name

      The universe is built like an enormous feedback loop,

      a loop in which we contribute to the ongoing creation

      of not just the present and the future but the past as well.

      — John Wheeler*

      Lone Pukau

      I

      Your tongue swells, its smallest gland

      still secretes saliva,

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